Scattered Thoughts . . .

Sony a6000, Canon 400mm f5.6 L lens               First, while my dislocated thumb heals I'm limited in what I can get accomplished around the house so I wanted to write a little bit about a photo of the full moon that I shot a few months ago.  I belong to a few different astrophotography and astronomy groups and someone was asking about lenses for photographing the moon so I helped them out with a few tips. Afterward, I got to thinking that the info I shared with that astronomy group would probably be good to share here too.  The main reason for the request for help was to help the person choose a lens that would be good for photographing the moon. For this type of photography, most people recommend a 70-300mm lens but I've never been happy shooting with a standard 70-300mm lens. That being said, I have managed to get a few decent shots over the years using a 70-300mm lens on a smaller 4/3-sized sensor. The advantage of the smaller sensor is it doubles the equivalent

The sun can be seen illuminating the back end of the Wedge. It has been difficult for me to get out at night lately to view the night sky with a telescope. We don't get crisp, clear nights all that often and especially in the summer. My health problems don't help in this cause either because quite often I am left too exhausted by the time we finish dinner. The real icing on the cake lately has been a roaming bear in our neighborhood at night and I really have no desire to bump into a roaming bear in the dark! Needless to say, it has been difficult to get out at night for some astronomy in recent weeks. The aforementioned nighttime viewing problems got me wondering about giving daytime solar astronomy a try. To make a long story short, I found that all I need to do to view the sun is replace one part of my telescope with a part that is designed specifically for viewing the sun... then add a filter or two... then I can view the sun with my own telescope and shoot images w

We again headed toward the airport the other day to greet Adam as he arrived from his last assignment. He is on his way to his new assignment and will be staying with us for a short while before continuing on to his new duty station.  It was a big 4th of July Parade day in all the towns surrounding Burlington so we were a little late getting to the airport which meant we didn't have time to visit the tower to watch Adam's plane arrive from up there... Nan and Pop arrived at about the same time as we did but parked at the opposite end of the parking garage... Adam arrived only a few minutes after our own arrival... Liza and the kids arrived shortly after Adam's arrival and we found them on our way to the luggage carousel... Kenzie surprised us by making a sneaky and very determined, direct beeline toward Uncle Adam and jumped up into his arms... As usual, we headed out to a nearby restaurant for a nice lunch together... Lukey w

Adam is visiting for a short while as he travels from his previous assignment to his next assignment. It has been nice catching up with him about stuff at home as well as Air Force stuff.   Last night, Adam realized that he had an award to show us and went digging through one of his bags...   Adam was recently awarded his second Air Force Achievement Medal (hence the reference to an "oak leaf cluster" on the certificate). The citation (the narrative describing his particular accomplishment for this medal) cannot be shown here because it contains classified and sensitive information but I can say that this is definitely a noteworthy achievement relating to specific Air Force operations and missions on multiple continents. Congratulations, Adam!

This morning was my turn for the hospital.   Yesterday, I had disassembled our icemaker because it was frosted-over and no longer making any ice. I defrosted all the ice/frost... and started assembling everything again... as I was pushing the icemaker upward with my thumb with as much force as I could muster to get it to clip back into place, my thumb suddenly popped loudly and bent completely backward just like a fingernail does at times...  That hurt a bit but the thought of my thumb bending completely backward at the top joint gave me the heebie-jeebies more than anything!   I continued assembling the icemaker... finished... turned it back on... and then took a closer look at my swollen thumb... I somehow got my thumb back into place but it was painful and a bit swollen. I figured I would let it go for now and see how it heals since it was not bruised yet nor was it looking like a balloon.  By last night, my whole hand was swollen so I knew I'd probably be heading for s

Lukey and Kenzie's last day of school was Friday and we were on the road to Long Island with them in tow by early Saturday morning.  We all had a great time with family and at a few different events. The kids were really looking forward to some beach time though! Actually, I think we all were looking forward to some beach time. The beach was foggy and quite deserted when we arrived in the morning. We set up our stuff right where I figured the surf would be at high tide and it turns out I was right because the lifeguards placed an "Umbrella Line" sign just in front of us when they came on duty. The kids spent the entire previous day playing with their Long Island cousins. Little did they know, Aunt Margaret had planned to surprise them by joining us at the beach too. So, they spent the entire time on Long Island socializing with people and it was obvious they enjoyed themselves. Jones Beach was beautiful, as always. The sand at this particular beach is a fine whit

We'd had enough of Sheila's piece of shi... uhhh, junk... Hyundai Sonata and Sheila has been feverishly hunting for a Honda Accord for the past month or so. About two years ago, Sheila decided she wanted her next car to be a Honda Accord but has been paying off her Hyundai in the meantime. She found one a few days ago on a used car website...  we then squeezed in a test ride a day or so later... we told the dealer we liked it and we wanted it... and we picked it up the following day, yesterday. Both the bank and the dealership were very accommodating in getting everything done within hours. This Honda Accord is a significant upgrade compared to her old Hyundai Sonata. There aren't enough negative adjectives to accurately describe that old hunk of junk. What I can say in clear, concise words is we will never buy another Hyundai. This Honda rides so much more smoothly than her old car. It is far roomier inside too which Honda's are known for ever since their 1970'

While I was sitting on the couch this evening, some movement caught my eye out our living room window in the road right outside our house. As I looked more carefully out the window, I could have sworn I saw a good sized Black Bear. I wasn't completely sure it was a bear since I only saw the rear half of the bear before he disappeared in our neighbor's yard.  Since there are quite a few kids who wander around this trailer park throughout the evening and early nightfall, I wanted to make sure I was seeing things clearly so I jumped up and quickly headed outside. Within a few feet of the house, I stopped in my tracks as a rather  big Black Bear was slowly sauntering toward me. He also stopped, looked up at me, and then turned into our neighbor's yard across the street. It was clear he wanted to avoid human contact and that is a good thing but I still had some concerns about a bear wandering through the streets in our little neighborhood. We continued to watch for the bear

We've been trying to squeeze in more things with Lukey and Kenzie lately by spending a little less time at the hospital. One of the things we've been doing is going to Lukey's Tee Ball games... it is obvious in these photos that Lukey enjoys himself when playing Tee Ball by all the smiles and animated expressions... Lukey, picking up a grounder to make the play at first base, as his dad looks on... The harder Lukey tries to run faster, the farther his tongue sticks out... you should see that thing flap in the breeze when he really gets going! A race for home plate as the third baseman tries pick up the short grounder... ...Lukey made it to home plate... "Hey Papa... my water tasted a little... hic... funny..."  I don't have a clue what he was doing here...  perhaps he was bored and just playing for the camera...  clown...  Making the catch at first base... Not the best video clips (I&

I finished post-processing the two remaining sets of images from my first telescope observations with my new telescope. For a "first light" observation session with a new telescope... and never having done any astrophotography previously... these images turned out quite well! These two resulting images (each at a super-resolution of 96 megapixels) provide a much closer look at Montes Apenninus... a lunar mountain range named after the Apennine Mountains in Italy.  This rugged lunar mountain range towers to almost 18,000 feet in height. The total length of the mountain range is approximately 370 miles. I point this out because most people assume that the moon is relatively level and dotted with craters simply by its appearance from Earth. The reality is that the moon has a mostly hilly, rolling landscape and, obviously, some areas consist of towering mountain ranges as well. This particular rugged and towering mountain range ends at the crater Eratosthenes... Just beyon